The Kids had come so close, rallying from a 23-7 deficit to within two points on long passes and quick touchdown runs by senior quarterback Paul Kornfeind.

And if not for a 15-yard penalty for having an extra player on the field with 49 seconds left in the game, the Kids would have had one final chance.

They didn't. And Snell had to pick up the pieces, including the shattered hopes of the 8,500 fans who jammed the stadium.

"I'm disappointed in the loss, but I'm proud of the way the kids came back," Snell said. "I'm disappointed now, and I probably will be when I pick up the paper again in the morning.

"But the same thing happened to me in 1974, when I was coach at Slatington (now Northern Lehigh). We opened up with a couple of wins, and Northampton came up to visit us.

"We were leading 15-0, but Northampton came back to win 18-15. I was afraid that game would knock the wind out of our sails. But we ended up tying Northampton for the Lehigh Valley League championship."

So although Snell has moved from Slatington to Northampton, there is precedent for his teams.

"We play everybody in the league," Snell said. "So if we beat everybody else and somebody knocks off Liberty, we'll at least tie for the title."

The Kids beat to Whitehall 6-0 last Saturday and will play host to Dieruff Friday and Central Catholic Oct. 11 in Al Erdosy Field.

Of course, talk of titles isn't new to Northampton. But it hasn't been done lately. The Kids haven't had a winning season since 1977.

Even Snell, who produced a perennial winner at Slatington, could do no better than 2-10 last season, when he took over the Kids' program.

"We had some good ballgames last year," Snell said. "We lost to Liberty late in the fourth quarter on a 99-yard interception return. Then we had a heartbreaking loss to Phillipsburg, when we had a chance to block an important punt and were called for roughing the kicker.

"We just didn't seem to have enough to get over the top."

But even as his team was suffering the 10 losses, Snell felt better than during the previous season, when he wasn't coaching anyone.

"When I left football at Northern Lehigh, I thought I would be able to do all sorts of activities with the family," Snell said. "But with my girls cheering, we really couldn't get away. It was boring. As it turned out, I gave up the thing I liked to do best.

"Going to Northampton was a great chance to move upward. After all, could I have done any worse? I wanted to see what I could do."

And he has done a lot. As the fans filed into Al Erdosy Field to see their 2-0 team meet Liberty, that was obvious. At the start of the second quarter, an estimated 1,000 people were still waiting at the gates. Veteran observers in the press box said they hadn't seen such attendance in years except for Thanksgiving Day games.

"I felt bad for the people in the stands," Snell said. "They are so hungry for a winning team.

"I don't think we made any physical mistakes against Liberty. It was more like bad luck at certain times in the game - a field goal which was close to being no good; a crucial fourth down which was the matter of the officials' placement of the ball."

The coach was especially impressed with the play of Kornfeind, senior tailback Scott Meldeau and senior Danny Reenock, who was moved from linebacker to noseguard.

"These kids put in a lot of unheralded work," Snell said. "So far, we have the best line of any team I've seen."

And Snell doesn't think one tough loss in an extremely exciting game will hurt the Kids. Not this season.

"This is a good group," Snell said. "They came up through the ranks together. Winning is something they expect. They are very methodical. What may have hurt them most is that they truly believed they would go undefeated."